This has been a long time coming for this machine, this bike has stared at me for way too long and finally something showed up that gave me the direction that I need to get it completed and back on the road. Yes talking about the CB550 that has graced my garage since around 2009-10 and has never gone anywhere do to constraints of not owning it for most of that time. Little back story, friend of mine decided that he wanted a cafe racer and he and I both started looking for a project for him and I to work on. Along came a decent but neglected 75 CB550SS, mostly complete, title, not been run since the prior owner died several years prior. It was another one of those ran when parked bikes so I told him go look at it price was good. Next thing I knew it was siting in my garage minus gas tank as according to him it was rotted through so he tossed it wasn't planning on using it anyway. We pulled the carbs and found them to be ruined due to corrosion, none of the primary jets had any of the post left to sit in. SO another one of those, something we see here all the time. He managed to find a good set of carbs at a junk yard in the area which I went through and cleaned and rebuilt.
Few days later I hung the bank on the engine and tried to get it running with an auxiliary tank. Thing backfired out of the carbs like it was out of time so I checked a few things and found someone had wired the coils backwards. It fired right up and ran after fixing that. We played and messed around with it over the next year or so doing this and that but never really getting it past a mock up stage. His schedule ended up changing to where he was never around and the thing just sat. One day we caught up and he handed me the title and told me have fun, he doesn't have time for it and he knows I will get it where it needs to be.
I've stared at this poor thing for years, trying to direct were it should go and watched as it had the ass end hacked off and spent many hours trying to figure out what I should do with it. Recently, I know this is stupid but I finally researched the VIN on it and found it to be a reasonably early version of this model, they came out in 75 and this according to the VIN, is around the 8500 one made, born on FEB date. And for some ODD reason someone on eBay had parted one of these and had cut the back end off the frame with all the parts I need to put the titled frame back into stock condition.
SO after that long winded BLAAA, pictures. Yes we had planned on using a CB500T tank, and they do fit although they need the petcock moved. CB450 tank fits as well.
AS for perspective, this is how the rear end is NOW
And this is what I got of good old eBay that constitutes the $100.
This is the first time I have attempted to replace a large part of the frame on a motorcycle, with as much grinding and cutting that has gone on to this the best option thus far is to cut most if not all of the back end off and replace it. Yes plugging tubes will be involved as well an hunting down all the other parts needed to put this bike back to stock. I figure its early enough in the production cycle that it is worth saving.
And this is going to take some time, I have to gather many more parts to finish out the rest of the bike but there will be several modern upgrades as well, it already has a K&N air filter adapter and modern reg/rec and it will be getting a blade type fuse box and better lighting. It may end up getting the hard sided saddle bag I bought years ago and haven't used on anything. I've been saying I want it out of my garage and the best way to make that happen is to finish it. I will say that up till now I have about 10 years storage time in this and about $250 bucks in parts as I got the title for free so we shall see what else comes along.
Few days later I hung the bank on the engine and tried to get it running with an auxiliary tank. Thing backfired out of the carbs like it was out of time so I checked a few things and found someone had wired the coils backwards. It fired right up and ran after fixing that. We played and messed around with it over the next year or so doing this and that but never really getting it past a mock up stage. His schedule ended up changing to where he was never around and the thing just sat. One day we caught up and he handed me the title and told me have fun, he doesn't have time for it and he knows I will get it where it needs to be.
I've stared at this poor thing for years, trying to direct were it should go and watched as it had the ass end hacked off and spent many hours trying to figure out what I should do with it. Recently, I know this is stupid but I finally researched the VIN on it and found it to be a reasonably early version of this model, they came out in 75 and this according to the VIN, is around the 8500 one made, born on FEB date. And for some ODD reason someone on eBay had parted one of these and had cut the back end off the frame with all the parts I need to put the titled frame back into stock condition.
SO after that long winded BLAAA, pictures. Yes we had planned on using a CB500T tank, and they do fit although they need the petcock moved. CB450 tank fits as well.
AS for perspective, this is how the rear end is NOW
And this is what I got of good old eBay that constitutes the $100.
This is the first time I have attempted to replace a large part of the frame on a motorcycle, with as much grinding and cutting that has gone on to this the best option thus far is to cut most if not all of the back end off and replace it. Yes plugging tubes will be involved as well an hunting down all the other parts needed to put this bike back to stock. I figure its early enough in the production cycle that it is worth saving.
And this is going to take some time, I have to gather many more parts to finish out the rest of the bike but there will be several modern upgrades as well, it already has a K&N air filter adapter and modern reg/rec and it will be getting a blade type fuse box and better lighting. It may end up getting the hard sided saddle bag I bought years ago and haven't used on anything. I've been saying I want it out of my garage and the best way to make that happen is to finish it. I will say that up till now I have about 10 years storage time in this and about $250 bucks in parts as I got the title for free so we shall see what else comes along.